


Waiting in the Sky

by severinne



Category: Life on Mars (UK), Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Community: picfor1000, Crossover, M/M, Time Travel, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-21
Updated: 2011-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-15 20:17:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/severinne/pseuds/severinne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mysterious fireman appears just in time to save Sam Tyler’s life, and Gene is more suspicious than grateful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting in the Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [norfolkdumpling](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=norfolkdumpling).



> Written for picfor1000's Challenge 9: Dressed to the Nines based on [this picture prompt](http://bighugelabs.com/onblack.php?id=3071655212). Also dedicated to norfolkdumpling on the occasion of her birthday :)

Gene stalled at the hospital room’s threshold, bristling at the shape of a man occupying his place at Sam’s bedside. The stranger was little more than a shape; he had appeared at the warehouse fire like a ghost, but the oversized heft of his fireman’s gear was more substantial than seemed decent. Whatever he was, he was too big to be allowed, like an astronaut sent to sweep Sam back to the planet of the Clangers.

‘Oy, spaceman.’

The astronaut pivoted at the door’s angry slam; without his face shield, he seemed more human, with sweat-matted curls clinging to a furrowed brow. Glancing cautiously at Sam’s unconscious form, Gene edged closer, rummaging his Marlboros from beneath his coat.

‘Why were you at the fire?’

‘I’m a firefighter, aren’t I?’ He checked his smoke-damaged coveralls, like he really wasn’t sure at all.

‘Don’t be a smartarse,’ Gene snapped back. ‘The Fire Chief hadn’t a sodding clue who you are or where you come from.’

The stranger rubbed at a smear of soot curving his cheekbone. ‘What are you implying, Mr. Hunt?’ he asked, low-voiced with an American accent that didn’t grate Gene’s ears as it normally would; rather, it was soothing like a Western hero’s lazy drawl.

Except this bastard wasn’t from any sort of Western Gene had ever seen. Perching a cigarette between his lips, he searched his coat’s outer pocket, glad of the protection of his driving gloves against the foreign object stowed there.

‘Let’s start with this.’ He dropped the small metal _thing_ he had seen fall from the fireman’s coveralls at Sam’s feet, watching closely as pale blue eyes widened in recognition and, possibly, panic. ‘Damned if I know what that is,’ Gene mumbled around his cigarette, striking it alight, ‘but looks like one of them mobile thingies my DI keeps rattling on about.’

The fireman’s gaze snapped like quicksilver away from the device. ‘What do you know about DI Tyler?’

‘Never you bloody mind.’ Gene exhaled a mouthful of smoke, glanced at Sam’s pale lips as he considered the audacious questions searing his nerve-wracked tongue.

‘My DI reckons he’s come from the future, y’know.’

‘I assumed as much.’ With a low sigh, he jerked at the fastenings of his fireproof jacket, visibly relaxing as the heavy garment fell aside. Beneath the protective gear, lean muscle in a clinging white vest arrested Gene’s eye for several beats too long before he recovered his scowl.

‘Tell me who you are,’ Gene growled, ‘and what the hell you want.’

Blue eyes sternly measured him before softening with resignation. ‘Captain Christopher Pike,’ he said finally. ‘And no, not from around here either.’

Gene nodded grimly. ‘That’s one half of my question answered.’

Pike tiredly shook his head. ‘No idea. I was piloting a shuttle to the orbital shipyards, my sensors showed a burst of chroniton radiation... must have infiltrated the plasma injectors in the warp–‘

‘Do they speak ruddy English in the future?’

Pike sighed. ‘Never mind.’

‘Worse than Tyler, you are,’ Gene muttered. ‘I don’t give a shit _how_ you got here, but I don’t much care for Yankee astronauts from the future sniffing round my DI.’

‘I saved him from a burning building,’ Pike protested flatly.

‘You shouldn’t have been there in the first place!’

‘I just… materialized there!’ Pike snapped back. ‘Wearing this… nonsense, and your DI emitted high chroniton readings before my tricorder melted… oh, forget it,’ he waved off, weary and frustrated. Gene almost felt sorry for him. Almost. ‘I just need to get back.’

Gene swallowed down panic like cobblestones in his throat. ‘And take Tyler with you?’

‘Even if he wanted to go with me, no. Starfleet has rules against that sort of interference…’

‘Tyler’s a bloody interference already.’

‘And it wasn’t my name he called out when I carried him from that building,’ Pike continued, eyes sharpening. ‘Gene.’

Clearing his throat, Gene glanced sideways at Sam. He hadn’t given Pike his first name. ‘Suppose you’ve got some pretty thing waiting for you already.’

For the first time, Gene recognized the iron-tight control Pike had been holding over his reactions when he slumped, so suddenly tired, against the foot of Sam’s bed.

‘I might,’ he admitted.

Gene nodded, felt the embers of his cigarette creeping close to his fingertips. ‘Reckon she’ll notice you’ve gone?’

‘I like to think he would, yes.’

The pointed look Pike threw his way, flaunted like a dare, compelled Gene to sneer defensively in response. ‘Figures space would be full of poofters.’

Far from looking ashamed, or even annoyed, Pike merely smirked with a strange twist of amusement and pity in his eyes. He snatched up his metal gizmo before Gene could even lower his cigarette to intercept and straightened abruptly.

‘I’ll be out of your way soon enough, Mr. Hunt,’ he said, low and disdainful. Pike frowned as Gene stepped directly into his path, swaggering every inch of his superior height against that astronautical bulk.

‘Long as you’re in my city, you’re in my way,’ he stated baldly. ‘And unless you’ve got a TARDIS shoved up your jacksie, it might take you a while to figure out how to get back where you came from.’

Pike’s guarded gaze tracked downward before shifting back to his face. ‘I said I’d stay out of your way.’

‘Might find staying close more useful.’

Pike stared, astonished.

‘I mean,’ Gene dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out beneath his toe, ‘I’m no rocket scientist, but you’ll need help lying low… goes better with two, is all.’

Eventually, after a longer awkward silence, Pike offered the beginnings of a warming smile. ‘It might, yes.’

Gene nodded once, all business. ‘Fine. Let’s get you out of here for starters…’

‘Unless you’d like a moment with your DI first?’ Pike suggested.

Heat scratched up Gene’s back, but Pike’s face was placid, without scorn or mockery. With a grunt, he stepped aside, jerked his head towards the door.

‘Right,’ he agreed. ‘One thing at a time.’


End file.
